They are off and running.

At about 4:30pm yesterday I was at Rung Studios getting my paperwork in order and listening to some loud punk rock getting ready for the flood of filmmakers that would soon be coming in. I was startled by the arrival of Sean Roach, leader of the team Footbridge. It’s his third year competing so he understands better than most the importance of being early in this contest.

He was so early, I wasn’t ready to process his paperwork, so he headed out to get some food. When he came back, 2 more team leaders had shown up. I knew both of them and we still had some time to kill, so we stood outside and chatted for a bit and played with Spike’s dog.

At about 5:15pm, 45 minutes before the teams were supposed to show up, there was a rush. Team after team started flooding in, so I hopped behind my desk and started my yearly bureaucratic nightmare. They just kept coming. My assistant hadn’t shown up yet, so I got a little behind and there was a bit of a line forming.

My old friend Tom finally showed up, at the time I asked him to show up I should add. It’s just that the filmmakers took my emails seriously and showed up early.

Over the course of the last week, I had sent out some strongly worded emails to the team leaders in regards to how Friday would go down. It is a record breaking year with 52 teams signed up and 5 on the wait list, so I wanted everything to go according to schedule.

Between 5:30 and 6:00 the teams kept coming in. At 6:05pm, Chris Swenson from the Mayor’s Office of Film and Music arrived to give a run down of the do’s and don’ts of shooting this weekend in Seattle. The Mayor’s Office has been so supportive every year, so I really relish having a representative show up to keep the filmmakers informed about what it takes to be a responsible member of the Seattle filmmaking community.

At 6:25pm, I ran down the usual list of rules clarifications and then began the genre draw. With 52 teams present, I was a little worried about time but we got through all 52 teams and I was ready to announce the 3 remaining required elements. I ran those down and the teams who did not wish to opt for the wild card genre were out the door.

Team leaders not satisfied with the genre selection could stay afterward and choose a wild card genre. It could be better or far worse than what they originally drew. 5 teams opted for the wild card genres. They picked their new genre and were out the door.

I went outside to get some air and answer some last questions and watch the last of the 52 teams head out to begin their crazed adventure. This was at about 7:25pm.

I went in, packed up my stuff and caught a bus back home to the U-District. I got home around 9pm. I drank about 35 gallons of water and ordered a pizza.

My weekend will be fairly uneventful. Just need to do some prep work for the dropoff event and get ahead on creating templates for the audience ballots, etc. It is now early on Saturday and I expect the frantic emails and phone calls to begin soon!

Here are the required elements for this year’s competition:

48 HOUR FILM PROJECT SEATTLE 2009 REQUIRED ELEMENTS

Character
Kristy or Kyle Brown, Illustrator

Prop
A Tie

Line of Dialogue
“Wrong. Guess again.”

Genres – randomly drawn by the team leader:
Buddy Film
Comedy
Detective/cop
Drama
Fantasy
Film de Femme
Holiday Film
Horror
Mockumentary
Musical or Western
Romance
Sci Fi
Superhero
Thriller/Suspense